‘ONE LESS CEO’: Traffic Sign in Seattle Hacked by Someone Calling for More Assassinations
Someone hacked a traffic sign in Seattle on Wednesday night or early Thursday morning to call for the killings of more business executives a week after UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was gunned down in New York City.
A KOMO-TV photojournalist recorded a video of a road sign that flashed the message, “ONE LESS CEO MANY MORE TO GO.”
KOMO reported:
The sign did not belong to a government entity such as the Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT) or Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT), SDOT’s press secretary, Ethan Bergerson, said.
It belongs to a private construction construction contractor, but an SDOT crew was dispatched to investigate the sign Thursday morning. When the crew arrived, the message was already gone, Bergerson said.
It is not yet known who tampered with the sign.
The roadway where the message was displayed is traveled by an estimated 62,000 drivers every day.
A Seattle resident named Kelley Beebe told her city’s CBS affiliate KIRO that she was shocked to see such a message.
”It’s shocking. Really, that this is where our country seems to be going,” she said. “I don’t like it at all. The dialogue has gotten violent on both sides and this is what people think is a solution.”
Thompson was walking on a sidewalk last Wednesday outside the New York Hilton Midtown on Sixth Avenue when he was shot in the back by a suspect police have identified as Luigi Mangione.
Mangione reportedly underwent surgery for a back problem several years ago and might have harbored resentment toward the insurance industry. Bullet casings from the scene were inscribed with the words “deny,” “defend,” and “depose.”
The Associated Press noted of the messages:
They’re similar to the phrase “delay, deny, defend” — the way some attorneys describe how insurers deny services and payment, and the title of a 2010 book that was highly critical of the industry.
The suspect is currently being held in jail in Pennsylvania and is fighting extradition to New York where he has been charged with murder.
Watch above via KOMO-TV.
